-Candidates for governor
Harvey: a governor
should be touchable
Bill Harvey, gubernatorial
candidate, says the biggest
problem in Oregon today is
apathy. His primary objective, if
he is elected governor, would be
to rid Oregon of that problem.
"I would like to see more people
get involved,'' Harvey, 32, said.
"We've got to get the people to
rally around a common goal."
Right now most people in
Oregon aren't involved in the
governmental process, he ex
plained. They have become
disenchanted with politics and
basis. He would like to have the
representatives work more within
their districts than they have in
the past. Even he, as governor,
would be out on the streets
talking with his constituents.
"This governor is going to be
touchable," Harvey commented.
"I am going to be in the streets
more than I'm going to be in
Salem. I want people to be able to
tap me on the shoulder and tell
me what they're thinking, what
they want the government to do."
McCall hasn't been touchable.
Bill Harvey
leave the initiating of action up to
the professional politicians who
work in Salem. But government,
he said, is supposed to be the
force which unites the people and
the processes, not the force
which has the sole power to
conceive, begin and complete a
project. The people must have
more to say about the processes.
Harvey wants to see government
get back to the people on a local
he added. Most Oregonians never
see him, even if he's in their town.
They would have to go to Salem if
they wanted to see the governor.
Harvey says that it is as much the
governor's obligation to travel
around the state to meet people
as it is to do the work in Salem.
Harvey calls himself a public
servant rather than a politician.
The difference between the two,
as he sees it, is that the politican's
job is to work out the leglislation,
while the public servant's job is to
act solely on the wishes of the
people. The governor should “run
interference" between the public
and the legislators, Harvey said,
and he should see that adequate
compromises, acceptable to both
sides, are reached when
necessary.
Harvey said he already has a
good idea of what the people
want. For the past 11 years he has
been working for the General
Accounting Office of the U.S.
Congress evaluating government
funded programs. From that job,
he said, he got a good idea of
which government programs
most people are interested in and
what they want out of them.
Since he began his campaign for
governor at the beginning of
March, Harvey said he has found
that most people are concerned
with what they call the big issues.
But they don't realize that what
they recognize as issues aren't
really issues at all —they are just
symptoms of bigger problems.
The government of Oregon has
been preoccupied with working
on the symptoms and Harvey said
it is time to get to the real
problems at the roots of the
issues.
An example of dealing just with
the symptoms is the lower speed
limit as a solution to the gas
shortage. Harvey supports the
limit, but he said that what the
state really needs is a new mass
transit system. He wants to see
busses and trains become more
convenient for the people to use.
The bottle bill is another solution
dealing mainly with symptoms.
The problem in that case is waste
disposal and Harvey would like to
see more programs which
establish the recycling of most
waste materials instead of just
soft drink containers. "I don't
think the bottle bill has gone far
enough. Wine bottles should be
included,” he added.
Harvey said he wants to see
more money go into higher
education. Funding should be
determined by the individual
programs offered at state in
stitutions and the government
should examine those programs
before allocating funds, he said.
He supports the use of DDT on
the tussock moth in Eastern
Oregon. He said he visited that
part of the state recently and saw
what the moths could do to the
land. Harvey said that had DDT
been used when the problem first
appeared, the damage caused by
the insecticide would probably
have been less than the damage
caused by the moths.
Sandi McDonough
Straub: for active leadership
Bob Straub stresses his ad
ministrative skills and his career in
local government as his most
important qualifications for
governor.
"I have a long record of active
and uncompromising leadership,"
he says. He ieft the office of state
treasurer two years ago, after two
four-year terms.
Straub likes to cite the many
issues he was involved in during
that time: the Willamette
Greenway project, the purchase
of the beaches and the effort to
save French Pete from logging.
He is stressing environmental
issues in his campaign. He wants
to see uncontrolled urban ex
pansion onto farm-lands stopped.
He proposes taxing valuable farm
land on the basis of how much it
can produce, thus making it too
expensive not to farm the land.
He would like to strengthen the
Forest Service and make it
responsible for both public and
private lands. He would like to see
the Forest Service and the Bureau
of Land Management help timber
producers—especially small
operators—to harvest more trees.
He said the state should hire out
trained forestry supervisors.
"We're doing a terrible job in
timber resource management,"
he says. He feels Oregon is not
getting enough timber from the
areas it is already harvesting.
He would boost tax incentives in
order to raise the productivity of
forest lands.
Not everything that
is faced
can be changed
But nothing con be changed
until it is faced
JAMES BALDWIN
we believe in the future
Although he favors geothermal
energy (tapping reservoirs of heat
under the earth's surface) he does
not favor a moratorium on nuclear
power plants.
him or her to the proper program
whether it be welfare, food
stamps, health service, unem
ployment insurance or any other
service.
Robert Straub
He says Oregonians should
reduce consumption in order to
reduce the amount of energy they
use But if that doesn't work, he
would support a nuclear power
plant with adequate safety
precautions.
And he says he would accept an
extension on the field burning
ban, if farmers were not allowed
to bum straw which he said was a
major source of the pollution.
The state housing subsidy
Straub proposes calls for includes
more people and less affluent
families. Presently, families
making less than $8,700 are
eligible for housing loans, he said.
He would lower that limit to
$5,400 a year.
As governor he would like to set
up something called a "prime
resource counselor staff." The
staff would direct the state's
social service programs.
They would assess an in
dividual's needs, and then direct
Straub said this consolidation of
services would cost less and
involve fewer but better trained
people. He also explained that
better trained counselors could
spot a person's true problem and
deal with that instead of just
dealing with the "symptoms" of
his or her problems.
Straub opposes Ballot Measures
One and Three which affect the
way public schools are financed.
He says Measure One is costly to
homeowners and renters, and
Measure Three is misleading.
However, he is in favor of in
creased state support of schools.
He backed the McCall tax plan
which shifted almost all financing
responsibility to the state.
And although he is in favor of
fluoridation of drinking water, he
is not pleased with the way the
State Health Commission ordered
the fluoridation.
He would like to see public
hearings on the directive.
Mike Dolan